TODAY FROM AMERICA:

I spent a week in the hospital, taken there by ambulance that broke down along the way. I contracted a severe urinary infection more than likely caused by the repeated changes of the catheter into my bladder. By the time I was discharged the bladder bag had been joined by a second pinned to my kidney through my back. Call me Pookie the Bagman now.

Despite my discomfort, I have begun mild exercising again as I await re-admittance into the hospital for the minor operation that I have been assured will cure my current ills. A little hiking around the lakes, various not so strenuous exercises, and some minor weight work lighten my attitude. Later in the afternoons, I sit out on the deck, eating chocolate, drinking cranberry juice and watching the hummingbirds chase each other around the feeder.

The hummingbirds flit,Shimmering across the sky,Bright Iridescent.

HRM returned from Europe. Noise and laughter returned to my life. My son Jason and my granddaughter Athena drove up from the Bay Area today to visit me. It made me very happy. Meanwhile, I still wait for the doctor to schedule my operation so that I can return to a normal life-style.

The heat from the Great Valley has boiled up into the Golden Foothills bringing afternoons huddled by the air-conditioner. I urge myself to get into the car and drive somewhere cooler, up into the mountains or down to the coast, but it all seems too great and effort to just find comfort. So, I turn over and doze the afternoon away until dusk. At my age, those are precious hours to waste. But waste them I do without much regret.

MOPEY’S MEMORIES:

When I was Executive Director of the State Coastal Conservancy every year at budget time the Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst Office would recommend that the Legislature zero out the Conservancy’s budget. Every year I would fight against this and the Legislature would approve a Conservancy budget containing even more money than we had originally asked for.

After about five years of this, representatives of the two entities in question came up to me and said, “Every year we try to teach you a lesson, but you never give up.”

“That’s not true,” I responded. “I often give up, just never to the likes of you.”

PETRILLO’S COMMENTARY:

History, alas,Ignored her story too long,But, at last, no more.

I consider history my primary preoccupation other than dreaming. Although it was my college major, I was never trained or accomplished enough to explore musty original sources and the other obsessions of the academic. It, nevertheless, has been my escape. During grammar school, I always sat by the bookcase containing the class history books. There, instead of participating in school activities, I would spend my time huddled with Julius Caesar, Squanto, Ivan the Terrible, Robbispeare, Lincoln, Hypatia, J. Pierpoint Morgan and whoever else turned up that day. After school, I usually spent at least an hour sitting by myself in the Principal’s office paying for my incorrigible behavior.

Over the years, my history infatuation eventually focused on a few areas and eras. They are:

I. Breakout

About 70,000 years ago give or take 10,000 years a group of hominid’s, estimated as between a few hundred to a few thousand, crossed out of Africa and into Eurasia somewhere at the southern extremities of what is now the Red Sea. From this tiny band, almost all humans living outside Africa descend.

This group of humans met with a host of other humans who had left Africa in waves over the previous two million years. The humans our intrepid band met, many years later were given various names by wise men who study and opine on these things. Based on slight differences in bones, and DNA the wise men named these groups of humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Erectus, Physically modern humans (picture us but supposedly dumber) and others. Our merry band bred with their predecessors accepting those genes beneficial to them. Those who managed a gene here and there that was not beneficial died out before they could do too much damage to the gene pool. Eventually, these new humans spread throughout the world in what appeared to be lightning quickness supplanting all the diverse humans who had freely roamed the world for millions of years before they arrived.

Why?

Some say they were smarter. Others say it was because they knew how to talk better. And some even believe, it is because they got religion. But, I do not think so.

So again, why did they prevail over all the other humans roaming around?

Fish. They ate fish. No, that is not a joke. Of all the humans in the world at that time, this group that left Africa 70,000 years ago and their cousins they left behind were, as far as we know, the only humans who ate fish. Whether it was something genetic like lactose tolerance that separated them from the others or a sudden urge to experience the delight of an oyster sliding down one’s throat, I do not know — but it happened and everything changed.

This Ichthycultural revolution was every bit as transformational as the Agricultural revolution that occurred 60 or 70 thousand years later.

For about two million years, the ocean shore was a desert for Hominids and other Great Apes. The salt water was undrinkable and except for shorebirds and their eggs and coconuts, there was precious little food. The estuaries were saline, undrinkable and dangerous. The larger rivers and fresh-water lakes, at least in Africa were killing grounds, haunts of crocodiles, hippos, and apex predators. It is no wonder the hominids, like the great apes, restricted themselves to the uplands and for the humans the forest edges and the grassland where they could scavenge, kill now and then and with their more upright posture see danger and escape.

I suspect that for the most part those humans in South-east Africa that first discovered the wonders of the seashore travelled back and forth between the shore and the upland like the California coastal Native Americans did many thousands of years later— moving to the upland during migrations of the vast herds of ruminants or the flowering of favorite fruit trees. There they probably met other humans and bred with them.

Unlike the upland nomads, the fish eaters tended to spend far more time in relatively the same place. Greater food resources and stability allowed the development of many of the traits that allowed these people to survive and prevail. They tended to be healthier. The stable food sources encouraged them to remain in the same area longer and their tribal or family populations increased to units larger than the small bands of the upland nomads. Stability allowed more children to survive than those forced to travel more often and whose food sources were more uncertain. This, in turn, resulted in longer nursing and greater social interaction producing more complex language abilities. Even religion changed, I suspect. Early hominids unable to fully distinguish their consciousness from the word around them projected consciousness onto their environment assumed each thing, trees, animals, rocks and so on had its own consciousness (spirit). They also were fascinated with birth and death which they did not fully understand. Our fish eaters, due to their more stable residence, began to distinguish those spirits close by from those further away and to assign those nearer a less malevolent aspect.

Of course, perhaps the most significant difference between the fish eaters and the other hominids was their emerging sense of place and ownership. To the nomadic humans, who travelled in very small bands, conflict over a carcass may have caused demonstrations of dominance and aggression but rarely killing. We have little evidence these humans engaged in systematic violence and some evidence that they even shared habitations in the same caves.

For the fish eaters, however, mussel beds and tide pools were stationary and merely scaring off another band for the night was insufficient and more formal violent behaviors developed.

As the fish eaters developed their society along the South-Eastern African coast about 100,000 years ago, a seminal event was occurring far to the North — the ice age began. As the ocean water began to be trapped in the great glaciers, the oceans receded opening more mussel beds and tide-pools for the fish eaters to exploit and a coastal highway for them to migrate along when their local food sources played out or their tribes grew too large and had to split up and migrate. Eventually, they crossed out of Africa somewhere at the southern edge of the Red Sea which at that time was a series of large salt lakes and brackish streams.

After that, they moved with startling quickness along the edge of the Indian Ocean reaching Australia within 15000 years. Along the way, they travelled along the estuaries and streams and mated with the upland tribes that they met especially the so-called fully modern humans (upland Nomads that did not eat fish) sharing their genes for good or ill.

Meanwhile, the upland humans were not faring so well. Living in small bands, often too small to permit out breeding, they often suffered genetic maladies. Also, as the glaciers expanded diminishing their habitat, they were more and more forced up against the habitats of the far more numerous fish eaters and their progeny many of whom had intermarried and returned to their nomadic migratory ways until, as far as we know, the last remaining group of Neanderthals ended up living by the sea in a cave somewhere in Portugal, trying unsuccessfully to survive on seal meat.
(Next: The first centuries.)

DAILY FACTOID:

“Finance holds a disproportionate amount of power in sheer economic terms. (It represents about 7 percent of our economy but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profits, while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.Foroohar, Rana.Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business. The Crown Publishing Group.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Quigley on Top:

“When someone campaigns for the Presidency on a platform of Law and Order, he means that he will intensify the external controls upon behavior of which people do not approve. That is executive power.”Carroll Quigley.B. Trenz Pruca’s Observations:

“The beauty of the world hath made me sad, This beauty that will pass; Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy To see a leaping squirrel in a tree Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk.”Patrick Pearse.TODAY’S QUOTE:

“Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees, and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations, and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.”Harari, Yuval Noah.Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (p. 32). HarperCollins.

“When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.”~Frank Sinatra

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA

TODAY FROM AMERICA:

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN MENDOCINO:

A few sunny days on the Mendocino coast allows me to sip my morning coffee and enjoy the view:

One day, I drove into Fort Bragg to have my tire repaired. Waiting for the repairs allowed me to do what I love doing best, wandering aimlessly. Among my wanderings, I visited the Noyo Headlands Park that the Agency I created and headed, the California Coastal Conservancy, helped to bring about. The Park represents to me an ideal use of an urban waterfront — an environmentally sensitive open park along the shorefront. I believe it will soon be considered one of the nation’s premier oceanfront park and restoration areas. Now if we can only get the City of Fort Bragg to post proper signage along PCH so that people can find it, it will be a boon to the City’s economic health and to the environment.
I urge you to visit it and see if you agree with me.

The overcast skies and rain have returned. Still the walks along the bluffs are exhilarating — the churning surf battering the black cliffs below. Now and then I notice a tiny bit of color among the bushes as I walk by.
One morning, the sun was out. My walk along the bluffs took me to an area that, despite my almost 50 years of visiting here, I had not gone before. I felt a little like Kirk and Spock visiting a new world — except here there were no large breasted aliens with skin tight costumes, colorful body paint, and prominent dark eyebrows. What there was, however, were white crested waves pounding the bluffs and curling onto the black sand beaches hidden among the cliffs.

Later, as the sun dropped toward the horizon, we strolled along the bluffs again.
All this dramatic natural beauty began to irritate me. I longed for a sidewalk, curb and a gutter blocked up with urban refuse. So, after my morning walk, I fled north to Fort Bragg in the hope that I could find a dingy bar filled with out of work loggers or a cafe with the paint peeling off the walls where I could drink weak American coffee.

As I approached the town and circled the round-a-bout, I took the road that said, “No exit,” or something like that, since it agreed with what I was feeling. I drove up what John Olmstead called the Mendocino Ecological Staircase in hopes that I would find a forgotten tavern among the Redwoods. The homes, more shacks than homes, became shackier as I drove, the fences more home made and the “No Trespassing” signs more prevalent. I realized I was entering the zone that 20 or 30 years ago harbored the areas high-value cash crops. I soon came to the end of the road and retraced my steps down the Staircase.

At the edge of the city, another road stretched off to the East. This road promised to cross the mountains to Willits on Highway one. I suspected, since this was a numbered road, a roadhouse would exist somewhere along it. So, I drove again up the staircase until I reached a sign that announced a curvy road for the next 25 miles. I knew that roadhouses only existed on straight-a-ways and I decided to forgo the possibility of encountering the ghost of Patrick Swayze and returned to Highway 1.

After passing through the harbor in hope I would find a fisherman’s dive with no luck, I drove into the back streets of Fort Bragg.

I had just about given up when I spotted a place on a woebegone corner of the city that seemed to have some promise.

I parked, went in and found what I was looking for. The twelve stools at the bar were filled with men and women, most of whom were my age or older. Nearly all of the men wore baseball caps and a few were dressed in work clothes. A woman with blond hair, who now would be referred to a naturally proportioned, presided behind the bar. Although I intended to order ginger ale, I decided to order the bar’s special amber ale instead. I felt it would be more appropriate. Much of the discussion around me involved the bar’s multiple Super Bowl pools whose mathematical basis was far beyond my comprehension.

A man sitting next to me knew Duke Snyder when they both lived in Compton. They would meet walking their dogs and discuss baseball and life while their dogs humped each other.

In the corner sat a man with dark skin and a magnificent beaked schnozz, I thought he was either Native American or Mediterranean based upon the size of his proboscis. I know schnozzes — we Italians revel in the potatoes or hatchets grafted onto the front of our faces. We believe it makes us look distinguished. I learned that during the 1950s, the beaked one pitched triple A ball for a team in South Carolina before his arm gave out. I was in heaven. Next to him sat a small dark woman with many tattoos who kept bouncing up and down running off to talk excitedly with someone else sitting at the bar.

Feeling happy, I ordered a second ale.

Later, more people showed up including a younger woman who seemed to be over six feet tall. She had long braided blond hair. She slammed down the drinks like she was born to it. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and appeared happy to be there or at least happier than being where they were before they got there.

I left after I finished my second ale because I wanted to be able to drive home and I had begun to feel the buzz. When I die, I want my ashes sprinkled on the floor of the place.

Later that night, we all returned to Fort Bragg because in was “First Friday” when all the galleries stay open until late at night. I bought an old used book that contained some interesting illustrations. We then had dinner at a Mayan Fusion restaurant in the harbor. It was quite good.

The next morning we hiked along the bluffs of Spring Ranch just south of the town of Mendocino. Spring Ranch is a Coastal Reserve created by California State Parks and the California Coastal Conservancy.

It is an example of the type of project I had in mind when I wrote the Conservancy Concept into California’s Coastal Plan, shepherded the legislation through the legislature and administered the agency during its formative years. It not only removes the land from the vagaries of regulatory conflicts but begins to push back the impacts of prior land uses, ranching and the like, through restoration. At the time the Conservancy was proposed, restoration of environmental resources was not a high priority of the State and in the case of wetlands opposed by many in the environmental community as well.

The Reserve is long and relatively narrow, stretching from PCH to the ocean for several miles. This type of public acquisition, small narrow units, along with the purchase undeveloped subdivisions along the coast were frowned upon by the State because of management and cost issues. Yet, we believed they were necessary if critical coastal resources were to be preserved and the goals of the Coastal Plan achieved. I am pleased to see that, in part through the efforts of the Conservancy, up and down the coast these objectives are now accepted.

Although the several entrances are a little difficult to see, once you do, you can stroll down across the coastal terrace, along the bluffs, and through a magnificently restored cypress grove. There are a few benches along the way where you can sit and watch the tumultuous surf crash of the rocks, and if the season is right, see whales migrating and seal pods roaming the waters and hauling themselves onto the rocks to sunbathe.

The Reserve is an excellent counterpoint to the more urban Noyo Headlands Park a few miles north. You should visit both if you are in the area, and don’t forget to stop at Point Cabrillo lighthouse and park and the Mendocino Botanical Gardens also, another Conservancy project in the area I am proud of. And, of course, end your trip sipping the wines at Pacific Star Winery while sitting on Dad’s Bench watching the sun dip into the ocean.

That afternoon, as I suggested above, we had a delightful picnic at Pacific Star Winery.
I bought a new hat there also.

The next day was Superbowl Sunday. I wasn’t feeling very well so after breakfast I returned to bed for most of the day. The following day the temperature reached 80 degrees. It is not natural for it to be so warm in February. After my walk, I napped to avoid the heat of the day as though I was still in Thailand.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

This is a photograph of my painting of a view in Cinque Terre. The painting itself was from a photograph I had taken of the place. The painting was then photographed and that photograph was photographed to present here. The colors and tints of the painting and the current photograph are not quite the same.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Quigley on Top:

The following is the fourth in the series containing excerpts from the Prologue to Quigley’s uncompleted magnum opus, WEAPONS SYSTEMS AND POLITICAL STABILITY.

The importance of organization.

“The importance of organization in satisfying the human need for security is obvious. No individual can be secure alone, simply from the fact that a man must sleep, and a single man asleep in the jungle is not secure. While some men sleep, others must watch. In the days of the cavemen, some slept while others kept up the fire which guarded the mouth of the cave. Such an arrangement for sleeping in turns is a basic pattern of organization in group life, by which a number of men co-operate to increase their joint security. But such an organization also requires that each must, to some degree, subordinate his will as an individual to the common advantage of the group. This means that there must be some way in which conflicts of wills within the group may be resolved without disrupting the ability of their common organization to provide security against any threat from outside.”

“These two things—the settlement of disputes involving clashes of wills within the group and the defense of the group against outside threats—are the essential parts of the provision of security through group life. They form the opposite sides of all political life and provide the most fundamental areas in which power operates in any group or community. Both are concerned with clashes of 8 wills, the one with such clashes between individuals or lesser groups within the community and the other with clashes between the wills of different communities regarded as entities. Thus, clashes of wills are the chief problems of political life, and the methods by which these clashes are resolved depend on power, which is the very substance of political action.”

“All of this is very elementary, but contemporary life is now so complicated and each individual is now so deeply involved in his own special activities that the elementary facts of life are frequently lost, even by those who are assumed to be most expert in that topic. This particular elementary fact may be stated thus: politics is concerned with the resolution of conflicts of wills, both within and between communities, a process which takes place by the exercise of power.”

“This simple sentence covers some of the most complex of human relationships, and some of the most misunderstood. Any adequate explanation of it would require many volumes of words and, what is even more important, several lifetimes of varied experience. The experience would have to be diverse because the way in which power operates is so different from one community to another that it is often impossible for an individual in one community and familiar with his own community’s processes for the exercise of power to understand, or even to see, the processes which are operating in another community. Much of the most fundamental differences are in the minds and neurological systems of the persons themselves, including their value systems which they acquired as they grew up in their own communities. Such a value system establishes priorities of needs and limits of acceptance which are often quite inexplicable to members of a different community brought up in a different tradition. Since human beings can be brought up to believe almost anything or to put up with almost anything, the possible ways in which the political life of any community can be organized are almost limitless.”

B. Trenz Pruca’s Observations:

Trenz Pruca’s First Rule of Management:

If most people agree with what you plan to do, don’t do it.

C. Today’s Poem:

He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he’ll give a lecture
on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.Wislawa Szymborska

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“Nature doesn’t ask your permission; it doesn’t care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well.”Dostoevsky,Notes from the Underground

I arrived back in Sacramento only to discover that my East coast-Italy travel plans have been hopelessly screwed-up because the only date available for me to travel from NY to Italy with Nikki at a discount would be on the 12th of September. That would be too early for me to accomplish what I want on the East-coast. I am now considering the possibility of a separate East-coast trip after the 15th of September and returning to Thailand at the end of the month or in early October through LA.

The hearing on our motion to dismiss in the custody case was held yesterday. The judged scheduled a hearing date for the 28th of September to allow for the filings of the various responsive pleadings. The plaintiff has ten days to respond to our motion so I will not leave for the East-coast until after we receive his response and file our reply. In the meantime I plan a visit to the Bay Area next week for visits with my son and various grandchildren, my sister and her progeny and Peter, Jerry Smith and Gates.

I recently, and I expect briefly, have settled into the pleasantly mindless life of chauffeuring Hayden to school and Taekwondo lessons and reading with him before bedtime.

On Sunday Dick, Hayden and I travelled to “Apple Hill,” a tourist area near Placerville manufactured by a few apple growers and wineries as a family vacation destination. I would not recommend it to would be tourists with or without families. We then went to Coloma (where gold was first discovered in California) to pan for gold (bucket list item).Dick and Hayden looking for color

We found none and went home.

The following day Hayden and I visited Bill and Naida at their ranch on the Cosumnes River. Bill appears to be recovering nicely from his recent brushes with death. Naida has returned from a trip to market her historical trilogy about the settlement of central California during the 19th Century. I consider the books some of the finest historical novels ever written.

Hayden, Bill and I went fishing for crawdads in the canal that runs along the river (bucket list?) and then with Naida went black berry picking before heading home.Bill and Haden hunting crawdads

B. NEWS STRAIGHT OR SLIGHTLY BENT:

1. Liberals are “unnatural”.

According to Psychology Today, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.

Examination of the 10-volume compendium The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, which describes all human cultures known to anthropology (more than 1,500) in great detail, as well as extensive primary ethnographies of traditional societies, reveals that liberalism is absent in these traditional cultures. While sharing of resources, especially food, is quite common and often mandatory among hunter-gatherer tribes, and while trade with neighboring tribes often takes place, there is no evidence that people in contemporary hunter-gatherer bands freely share resources with members of other tribes.

My first reaction to the above is to note that it is mostly bullshit.

It fails to account for the common (mostly male) urge to have others in his community support him or his cabal by claiming that they have some superior abilities over the rest of them; an open channel to god, cleverness, strength or ruthlessness. All of these claims sooner of later demand creation of a threat from the “other” in order to be maintained.

On the other hand, if we assume the observations of the researchers are accurate and their conclusions relatively true, then it could be concluded that much of history has been characterized by the creation of ever larger cultural groupings within which the individuals are persuaded they are different from those not in the group. Usually this conversion occurs because it is to somebody’s advantage to have everyone else believe so.

Characterization of the perceived difference in outlook between “liberal” and “conservative” is misleading. If the distinction were as they describe it, then those businessmen pushing for free trade could be seen as Liberals and those leftist concerned about its deleterious effects on the health and livelihood of those in their own country considered Conservatives.

2. So are conservatives.

a. A Lake Park Florida man “obsessed with Fox News and the Republican party” is in jail today after he allegedly said that he felt he was going to have to kill his girlfriend because she was a “liberal.”

(As I pointed out that this election may be the last hurrah of the white male in America. They know it and may be willing to kill to prevent women and “others” from taking over what they believe is theirs by right.)

b. Also from Florida. “After 2007, all the work here disappeared,” Mike a construction worker told a reporter. “Now, if there’s work in town, they only hire Mexicans, and they pay ’em eight bucks an hour,” or about 30 cents more than the state’s minimum wage of $7.67. “I refuse to work for $8 an hour. I’ve been doing construction for 20 years, and I won’t take being paid nothing.”

I feel for Mike. He represents the quandary faced by the poorly educated white male in America today. He will probably vote for Romney. If Romney wins, the minimum wage may drop (to encourage growth of the economy) and Mexicans and other “immigrants” discouraged from “taking” American jobs. Unfortunately for Mike, he still will refuse to work for minimum wage and will remain out of work.)

C. THAI OBSERVATIONS

Although it hasn’t been called Bangkok for around 200 years, the city’s day to day name is actually Krung Thep (pronounced Grung Cape), and is referred to as such throughout Thailand. Only we ignorant foreigners call it Bangkok. Krung Thep means ‘City of Angels’ (the same as Los Angeles) and is an abbreviation of the full name, which is possibly the longest place-name in the world. The full official name is ‘Krungthep Mahanakhon Amorn Rattanakosin Mahintara Yudthaya Mahadilok Pohp Noparat Rajathanee Bureerom Udomrajniwes Mahasatarn Amorn Pimarn Avaltarnsatit Sakatattiya Visanukram Prasit’.

In Thai, this is written as a single word of 152 letters. It translates roughly as ‘Great City of Angels the supreme repository of divine jewels, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living space of reincarnated spirits’.

In fact it is none of those.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

On the Edge: Stories about the Creation and Early Years of California’s Monumental Coastal Protection Program.

Detritus 35 years later (PART II):

POINT CABRILLO LIGHT HOUSE (continued)

Through sleight of hand including a land trade, the Coastal Conservancy and Peter Grenell managed to arrange a transfer of the 300+ acres of the headland including the lighthouse and several other buildings that housed the light keeper and other personnel from the US Coast Guard to the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

At about the same time as the land transfer was being arranged, the Conservancy arranged for a non-profit to come in and operate the hostels and provided funds to begin conversion of the structures to visitor serving (not remodeling or significantly altering them, but simply maintenance repairs and painting and things like adding bathrooms where necessary). The result has been the creation of a marvelous place to stay and experience the California coast.

Unfortunately, there appears to have been limited follow-up by the Conservancy. Despite the multiple bond acts containing hundreds of millions or dollars available to them they appear to have not provided any additional funds to complete rehabilitation of the units. I suspect that once the jurisdiction changed, in true bureaucratic fashion, they assumed it was the Department of Parks and Recreations problem.

Also it seems that operation of the facility as a hostel has been transferred from the original non-profit to another entity that may be a for profit entity with the result that although the main house is well run and still not too expensive (about $400 per night for 4 to 5 bedrooms), the less costly more hostel type units appear to be languishing.

Nevertheless, for those interested in getting away from it all and vacationing on the beautiful Mendocino Coast, it is a bargain.

TODAY’S FACTOID:

France 1785:

“The enormous mass of the French citizenry were illiterate day laborers, beggars, mass unskilled people scraping for a tiny wage, all heavily taxed, leaving barely enough to purchase a daily loaf of bread…well, half bread, half plaster filler. Of course, with no food quality regulation there was no guarantee that your bread wasn’t infested with ergot fungus or other microbes. On occasion, whole villages would go mad and commit mindless sexual violence or kill themselves. The life expectancy was about 40. For girls, that meant they had to be “plugged and planted” as soon as the first pubescent signs appeared. There was no birth control. A family had to have at least eight children in hopes that the good Lord would let two of them actually survive childhood.”Audreybeardsley Diary, Daily KOS.

For those eager to return to the “good old days,” please note; they were not so good. In case one thinks despite the privations it was a society that encouraged the enlightenment:

“For someone like Voltaire to escape grinding poverty and be independent enough to write, he had to practice insider trading on a lottery and support piracy, commit trading fraud, and engage in usurious loans, move to Switzerland, and finally have the freedom to express himself.”

On the other hand, I guess one could argue that Voltaire and the others like him were simply the Wall Street traders of their day and like Soros and Buffet became traitors to their class.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Pookie’s puerile epigrams:

Who the hell invented the concept of honor, and more importantly why would anyone invent something that cannot be explained and probably does not exist and then encourage others (mostly young men) to die for it?

(Note, perhaps this explains it:

THE CREATION OF THE WORLDS FIRST MAN OF HONOR

To me, humanity’s predisposition to warfare is explained not by simply whether they were originally predator or prey but by the fact that when they first dropped from the protective trees and trembling stood upright so that they were able see above the grasses of the veldt, they looked warily about for four things; predators, prey, sex and someone to do the dirty work or to take the fall.

Imagine, if you will, a small band of proto-humans are set upon by a ravenous saber-toothed tiger. One of the men guarding the tribe turns to the one next to him and says, “Quick Smith run over there and punch that thing in the nose.”

Smith in his manly exuberance does so.

“Oh-oh” says the first man. “Too bad for Smith, brave of him though. Well, lets push on while the cat is busy with him.” He turns to the rest of the tribe as they prepare to run away and shouts, “We shall remember Smith’s sacrifice for all eternity.”B. What “Occupy” is all about and what it really wants:

Another example of liberal bias. Obviously a CEO is more important to our society’s well-being than the soldier who defends our liberties, the teacher who instructs our children, the police and firemen who protect our homes or the emergency room nurses who treat us when we are injured (especially if they belong to a union). We would not pay him so much if he were not. I am sure that the CEO would not work so hard for the benefit of everyone else should he make only 250 times more per hour than the median wage worker instead of the 280 times he now does,

C. Electioneering:

1. Democrat’s exaggerate, Republicans lie dept.
You see if Romney were a Democrat he instead would have said something like:

“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago. federal spending has accelerated at a pace that if it continues could bring on the end of the world as we know it.”

Hmm.. I am sure he said that too, but being a Republican he couldn’t leave it at that and had to lie as well.)

2. Is God Republican or a Democrat?

“Heaven sent a hurricane to hold off Gov. Romney’s coronation, so today we’re urging pro-life GOP delegates to abstain from any voting on Romney’s nomination until all GOP financial support for Todd Akin is reinstated and details of Romney’s income tax returns in connection with Bain’s Stericycle investment have been mad public,”Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

D. Nevertheless they remain God’s elect:

A study by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, released recently, indicates that the middle class is much more charitable than the wealthy. According to the study, households earning between fifty-thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars annually gave 7.6% of their net income to charity on average, while households earning over a hundred thousand gave only 4.2%. When income broke two hundred thousand, the percentage given to charity dropped to a measly 2.8%.

Mathematically this means that a person making seventy-five thousand dollars per year gave $1700 more per year to charity that the average person making two-hundred thousand.

A political note: Although Mitt Romney’s only released tax return shows that he claimed about seven million dollars as charitable contributions out of a total Adjusted Gross Income of somewhere between twenty-one and forty-million dollars; a somewhat higher average rate of giving than most in his income class. However almost three million dollars of that amount represented his tithing to the Mormon Church much of which goes into church business investments and not social welfare, leaving four million in traditional charitable contributions, still perhaps a little higher than the average of even the middle class giving. Good for Mitt.

Unfortunately, he (Mitt) also bragged that he contributed more to charity [including to the Mormon Church] than he paid in taxes.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

” I just can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone who has been inside me.”Sex and the Shameless.

I am sure we all have had days (and perhaps weeks) when things simply do not feel right; where things that annoy you seem greater than they are. The past few days have been like that for me.

I am off to SF until Monday. I move from my nanny occupation to baby sitter. Hayden will not join me in SF as he is being taken to the local boxing match where the boyfriend of someones daughter is fighting (I later learned the boyfriend lost badly). Instead I have been pressed into babysitting my grand-daughter Amanda while her mom is busy elsewhere. I have always assumed that this was more or less a destined role as one grows older. For much of my childhood I was raised by my grandparents. I never thought about whether or not they had better things to do than watch over someone else’s child.

While lying in bed at my son’s apartment I could hear his wife and he arguing loudly as they do every night, It reminded me of when I was a child lying in bed listening to my parents seemingly endless arguments. Neither then nor now did I fear that the arguments might end in violence, instead the sense of impotence and futility that I could do anything about them kept me awake. Perhaps I could have done something, but I did not.

The next day I took my granddaughter to watch the America’s Cup races on SF bay. After a few minutes she asked me, “Grandpa when will we be having fun.”

B. THAI OBSERVATIONS:

Thinglish: Modern Thai slang

“O” means OK in Thinglish. Apparently OK is not short enough for Thais.

Another highly popular new Thai slang word is fin. It is not a fish winglike organ. In Thinglish slang “fin” often means to “have an orgasmic experience” when you “finish”. Younger Thais must be a very happy, orgasmic bunch as they seem to feel “fin” in the most mundane of activities, from eating a piece of cake or watching a TV show, to enjoying a new cool gadget. The other oft-quoted word origin is “finale,” suggesting a “climax” in the final episode of a show.From, A Woman Talks

PETRILLO’S COMMENTARY:

Over two decades ago I had the opportunity to manage a governmental entity that among other things was charged with resolving conflicts between development, community and environmental concerns. We developed a process, relatively novel at the time, encouraging those involved or concerned (later to be called “stakeholders”) to solve their disagreements among themselves.

The process required a team of technicians that could immediately turn a suggestion into a visual representation. This included someone capable of converting the discussions as they occurred into visual and organized notes for all to see. It also included a compendium of the financial and fiscal resources currently available thus forcing the participants to consider the same type of tradeoffs government and private interests must make in deciding what can be done and how long will it take. Finally it required an entity, in this case our agency, who could more or less on the spot make commitments to carry out at least initial elements of the agreed upon program.

What surprised me the most was not that we were successful in almost all cases, as we were, but that despite the heated rhetoric expressed before regulatory or legislative bodies, or in the media the disagreements were so often so slight.

Although conflict resolution techniques and design charrettes continue to be used almost everywhere, our particular intensive program eventually fell into disuse. That was because the urban areas included in our jurisdiction were limited in number and once the specific issues in conflict were resolved in these communities they remained so for a decade or longer. Also the process was management and personnel intensive and inevitably such activities in any organization eventually are replaced by a more procedural and careerist focus.

Fast forward to today, modern communications technology and social networking appears to be transforming almost everything we do, from how and where we work to how we entertain ourselves and socialize.

In community and urban development we now have all the information we could want at our fingertips although not necessarily organized and usable. A simple internet research shows that we have a plethora online communities dedicated to community action of one kind or another. Yet what happens when these online communities conflict with one another? As anyone who has actually been involved in assisting in resolving significant conflicts, good intentions and talking things out are not enough. Not only must thoughts and ideas be converted into a communications medium so that each participant has the same understanding as everyone else, but immediate unbiased response on the technical facts must be available if the enthusiasm and commitment to the process is not to wither and die waiting for it. Finally the hard facts of the limits must be available in a usable form to the participants.

Social media, in regard to community planning provides an advanced medium for sharing of information and ideas and encouraging coöperation and should the participants agree collective action. However, before collective action can occur, especially for something a complex and contentious as community planning the most difficult form of group or collective action is resolving those conflicts that more often than not are the reason for undertaking the collaborative planning process in the first place.

Modern communications technology and social networks offer the promise of real resolution of community conflicts. Nevertheless, it remains a promise that needs to be addressed.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

On the Edge: Stories about the Creation and Early Years of California’s Monumental Coastal Protection Program.

Detritus 35 years later (PART II):

POINT CABRILLO LIGHT HOUSE
In the nineteenth century the US, as well as most other industrializing countries in the world embarked, on a massive program of lighthouse construction. Although they aided somewhat in navigation, the main purpose of lighthouses was to reduce insurance costs for shipping (a welfare program for shippers) and as a side effect save the lives of a few sailors.

As a result, in the US at least, was the building of edifices as architecturally distinctive as those picturesque european castles built after gun powder rendered their predecessors obsolete.

By the 1970s communication and navigation technology had made lighthouses outmoded. Plans were made to begin tearing them down and using the lands on which they were situated for what was euphemistically called, “more productive uses.” In many cases it meant high cost housing for those with the wherewithal to live someplace no sensible person would.

Since the US at that time was a society wealthy enough to provide options to the human need to devour its resources in order to survive, organizations sprung up to protect these structures for their historic and esthetic values. Sentiment’s with which I heartily agreed. As a result, the Conservancy during my tenure set up a program to preserve these buildings along the California coast.

Since the Conservancy’s mandate included promoting public access to the coast, its program included opening these lighthouses and the lands surrounding them to the public and converting any associated structures (usually the Coast Guard light keepers residences) to low-cost hostels so as to provide lower cost overnight facilities to those unable to afford the usually higher cost visitor serving accommodations in the area or to serve specialized travelers such as hikers and bicyclists; thereby attempting to provide access for as many segments of the population as we could.

While I served as the Conservancy’s Executive Officer, the program assisted in preserving most of those lighthouses in California slated for closing.

Point Cabrillo was one of the first. It was located on over 300 acres of land covering the entirety of a large headland jutting out into the Pacific Ocean.

At comment on planning for this section of the California coast:

The first thing to recognize is that we often are talking about finite resources. In Mendocino there are only a limited number of coastal headlands along the coast. The mistake most land use regulators make is to assume the resources they are trying to protect are infinite in extent and the battle to preserve them never-ending . As a result they often propose such rules as “Coastal headlands shall be protected from adverse development and where possible…, etc.” Such policies generally neither protect nor preserve these areas in the long run since they are usually completely dependent on whether of not the economic development value of the parcels in question is significant enough to attract an excess of large well-funded developers competing to build on the parcel in question, or on the vagaries of changes in political winds. (In politics as in business and perhaps life itself, it usually comes down to a question of ROI)

By removing the most visually sensitive of these headland resources from the play of economic and political forces, what development potential there is would be redirected into the easier to regulate more forested areas inland and in the ravines and valleys between the headlands.

In addition to containing the lighthouse, this parcel (The Cabrillo Headlands) encompassed one of the larger and more significant headlands along this area of the coast.
(To be continued)

TODAY’S FACTOIDS:

A. Global Warming:

B. AD 325: Jesus becomes God

The Council of Nicaea:

By a vote of 161 to 157, the surviving attendees at the Council declared that Jesus was God.

Wow, I guess it is true that every vote matters. If just three votes had switched Jesus would have remained a carpenter and we may have elected a Republican as God. Don’t forget to vote.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Pookie’s puerile epigrams:

Scientists tell us we know nothing but only think we do.

Religious leaders tell us we know nothing, but someone who we will never meet knows everything.

Politicians tell us that they know and we don’t.

Business people tell us, if it cannot be bought and sold it is crap.

B. What “Occupy” is all about and what it really wants:C. Electioneering:

1. All you ever need to know about elections:

Democrats exaggerate. Republicans lie.

Whatever it is, it is neither as good nor as bad as a Democrat says it is. Whatever a Republican says it is, one can be reasonably confident it actually is the exact opposite.

2. Voters
.
Although this is a partisan political piece the underlying facts are accurate. What this tells me however, is that although it may be true Republicans are dumber than Democrats (see below), just because you are smart does not mean you will not act like an idiot and against what you know. It is sort of like the supposedly genius novelist that destroys his mind with alcohol.

D. Bokononism:

1. The Books of Bokonon: Excerpts from the Sixth Book

[ This book “is devoted to pain, in particular to tortures inflicted by men on men”. ]

If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.

In any case, there’s bound to be much crying.
But the oubliette alone will let you think while dying.

2. Favorite quotes from Bokonon

On maturity:
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

On parting:

It is never a mistake to say good-bye.

On love:

A lover’s a liar,
To himself he lies,
The truthful are loveless,
Like oysters their eyes!

On God:

God never wrote a good play in his life.

E. Testosterone Chronicles (penis file):

Relative to its size, a male water boatman (an insect about three-quarters of an inch in size) is the loudest animal on Earth. By rubbing their penis against their abdomen in an act called ‘stridulation,’ they can generate sound of up to 99dB. That’s louder than a jack hammer or train whistle. Luckily for us (as at this level sound can damage human hearing) the sound is dissipated by water and humans can’t usually hear the melodic sounds of water boatman rubbing their penises.

Do human water boatmen… you know the rest?

F. Department of abasement, apology and correction:

Ruth, in commenting on my assertion that the NAZI’s during the 1930s attempted to solve their unemployment problem by simply sending woman who were working back home, wrote:

“May I remind you that the US did the same thing when the men came home from WWII. Some women got fired and others became fodder for the household appliance and the crinoline industries–until Betty Friedan came along.”

I stand corrected and apologize.

It should be pointed out that both Germany and the US ultimately solved their respective employment problems by sending their young men off to die shooting each other.

I guess the war on women is just part of the ongoing wars on the young, the old, the poor, the infirm and those we do not like for some reason. I suppose the question is, who is it that wants these wars and why?

TODAY’S QUOTE:4

TODAY’S CHART:Note: Huffington Post reports a study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on IQ tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology, the study’s lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature “structure and order” that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. “Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice,” he added.

I think the study is nonsense. As was proven in Germany in the 1930s and in many other cases, smart but immoral people seeking power and wealth know full well how to appeal to ill-informed people in order to achieve their own ends. They also know, and other studies demonstrate this, that these same stupid people will believe that they thought it up all by themselves. This is why scapegoating so often works.

How do you really know who these people are that seek to gain power by these means? Not by whom they hate (we all do this to some extent), nor if they believe in supply side or demand (wrong though the supplysiders may be) or even at what point they believe a fetus becomes human, but whether they attack education, science and learning.

I returned to Sacramento on Wednesday and resumed the ambiguous life of living in someone else’s house and caring for a child rapidly assuming his own identity and beginning his life voyage; a voyage that I and others can at best be only temporary observers.

As I settle into my regime of nanny and part-time tutor, the distinction between days have begun to fade. The absence of readily available access to an automobile in this automobile oriented environment makes me feel like I am imprisoned in a velvet (or more appropriate manicured lawn) jail.

I look forward to next weekend when we plan to travel to SF to see the preliminary America’s Cup races.

Regarding the custody litigation, the hearing on the motion to dismiss has been tentatively set for August 30. Chances of success look very promising at this time. We are awaiting the responsive pleadings, if any.

Should we be successful, I assume my welcome as guest nanny will be withdrawn and I will, not completely regretfully, scurry off to eventually return to my room without a view adjacent to the BKK red light district where I will soon enough get to complaining about, followed by making plans to leave again.

B. NEWS:

My first paid post for a blog has been accepted and published. You can read it here. (If you would rather not read it, please click into the site once or twice anyway so that my new employer may be led to believe that I have a popular following and keep me on payroll for at least another post.)

As minuscule a success as it is, I am pleased, given that it is what I set out to do when I started “This and that…” (bucket list?). Now that I have done it, consistent with my history, I will soon tire of it, drift along for a while, get into arguments with everyone, quit in high dudgeon and set about searching for something else to occupy my time. In between I will be depressed.

C. THAI OBSERVATIONS:

Thai View Olympic Success:
(complements of Gary)

PETRILLO’S COMMENTARY:

I have written at length regarding the 10 millennium subjugation of woman even to the point of half-jokingly suggesting that the survival of humanity requires men stepping aside in favor of woman assuming control our species destiny given the fact that we men have so placed that survival in jeopardy. I suggested in another post that the current US presidential election could represent the last hurrah of the white male. Perhaps, despite the fact that no woman heads the ticket of either party, instead it could be looked at as the first election in the emancipation of women, given the stark differences in approach on gender issues between the two parties.

In the 1930s the NAZI’s had a number of simple solutions to the problems rampant in German society at the time. Among them was to cure the unemployment problem by sending women who had jobs back to their homes. Today among the simple solutions proposed for addressing the problems facing US society one party proposes returning women to the role as mere machines for reproduction.

Perhaps one of the more perceptive articles, and one that I highly recommend, on how even the most accomplished women are not so subtly silenced by many men was written by Rebecca Solnit in which she commented:

“A Freudian would claim to know what they have and I lack, but intelligence is not situated in the crotch—even if you can write one of Virginia Woolf’s long mellifluous musical sentences about the subtle subjugation of women in the snow with your willie.”

For at least 10,000 years or so virtually every political system, economic system and religion has been designed by men for men. There is no natural or divine law that requires any of these structures to be designed in the way that they have been. During those same 10,000 years every justification of those structures have been developed by men to benefit men.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

On the Edge: Stories about the Creation and Early Years of California’s Monumental Coastal Protection Program.

Detritus 35 years later.

During our recent trip to the Mendocino County Coast, Peter Grenell and I decided to look at some of the projects in the area that we had developed about 35 years ago during our stints running the California State Coastal Conservancy.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Coastal Conservancy was a novel concept at the time that I introduced it into California’s Coastal Plan in 1975 or so. It was proposed in response to the recognition that regulation alone could not deal with the deleterious impacts of pre-existing development that had prompted the call for regulation in the first place, nor with the continuing degradation of those resources that those pre-existing developments engendered. Nor could it effectively deal with many planning issues, such as setting firm urban limit lines (they almost always are ignored for a host of political, legal and equitable reasons). Similarly existing public acquisition agencies (Parks Departments or wildlife agencies) were unsatisfactory for dealing with these issues either because of the nature of their function (recreation or wildlife preservation) or absence of focus (e.g., creation of public ownership strips along urban limits, urban water from restoration and restoration of all kinds, individual access-ways to the coast and the like). And, finally there was no agency specifically dedicated to providing solutions to the often vexing conflicts between regulation, economic development and simple equity.

JUGHANDLE CREEK HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE NATURE TRAIL

One of the principle objectives of the California Coastal Program in general and of the State Coastal Conservancy in particular was to preserve and enhance access to coastal recreational resources for all. This included the poor as well as the handicapped. At that time providing facilities of any sort for the handicapped was a relatively novel concept. Over the next decade or so the plethora of regulations and programs for the handicapped that we are familiar with became prevalent.

Early in the existence of the Conservancy, I as Executive Officer was approached by John Olmsted to fund a handicapped accessible trail system along Jughandle Creek in Mendocino County. (For those who have read my previous posts on the subject, it was John and the issues surrounding the Jughandle Creek natural environment that got me involved in coastal resource protection issues in the first place.) He was busy trying to establish a cross California Natural Heritage Trail on which he spent the rest of his life working. He believed a trail on the coast with a handicapped accessible component would be appropriate beginning.

The Conservancy Board and I agreed and we funded the program. Designs were drawn up and the trail constructed. It was a bit of an engineering marvel since it had to traverse the terrain from ridge top to stream side as well as follows the winding path of the water course in a way that was accessible to the handicapped, environmentally sound and un-intrusive enough so that the visitors experience of the natural environment remained. It was completed relatively inexpensively with the help of volunteers.

Although constructed on lands owned by the non-profit educational entity run by John we expected that the State Department of Parks and Recreation would buy the farm as part of its Jughandle Creek State Reserve and Pygmy Forest State Park and assume the operation and maintenance of the trail. Alas for some reason, after I left the Conservancy, the acquisition was never completed.

Now over thirty years later Peter and I searched for the trail system but could not find it. We asked around, but nobody seemed to know what I was referring to. As we started to leave the area, I noticed some rotting wood along the path we were walking on. Upon closer examination I realized that this was all that was left of the trail system that had extended almost a mile through the forest. I assume without the park acquisition, the maintenance of the system became too great for the non-profit. Unfortunately my successors at the Conservancy failed to monitor their projects.All that is left of the Jughandle Creek Handicapped Access Trail

Next: Point Cabrillo Lighthouse.TODAY’S FACTOID:PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Pookie’s puerile epigrams:

A philosopher is someone who rationalizes from no evidence whatsoever. It saves the effort of going out and finding out what’s happening. It is an especially good occupation for old people. They can claim it has something to do with experience.B. What “Occupy” is all about and what it really wants:

C. Electioneering:

This chart also explains why Republicans in Congress try to ban funding for NPR. I suspect they would like to ban MSNBC also.D. Bokononism (Kurt Vonnegut):

1. Principles of Bokononism:

Bokononism is based on the concept of foma, which are defined as harmless untruths. A foundation of Bokononism is that the religion, including its texts, is formed entirely of lies; however, one who believes and adheres to these lies will have peace of mind, and perhaps live a good life. The primary tenet of Bokononism is to “Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”

2. The Books of Bokononism: Excerpts from Book One.

Warning from title page: Don’t be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma!

Verse 1: All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

Verses 2-4 (?): In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.” And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.

“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.

“Certainly,” said man.

“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God.

And He went away.3. My Favorite Bokononism Quotes:

1. Referring to one’s karass:
Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass.
If you find your life tangled up with somebody else’s life for no very logical reasons that person may be a member of your karass.
Likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it.

2. Referring to the wampeter:
No karass is without a wampeter, just as no wheel is without a hub.
Around and around and around we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin…
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.

E. Testosterone Chronicles:

Differences between men and women: no woman would ever utter the word apotheosis in a conversation.

The essence of Abrahamic religions: My penis is mine and your vagina is mine also.TODAY’S QUOTES:

They are still all white guys except with less facial hair and hats. Note: Only the guy from Goldman Sachs is smiling, as well he should be.TODAY’S CHART:

“Eschew mildew.”Ruth Galanter’s poetically sage advice for me to follow during the monsoons.

TODAY FROM AMERICA:

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN EL DORADO HILLS:

1. Escape from Bangkok:

Actually, leaving BKK was quite easy. The taxi arrived at my apt. promptly at 3am as promised and the driver only charged me a little more than normal for his trouble. It saddened me to leave BKK. Despite its gloomy skies, curfews, air pollution, broken sidewalks and fetid canals, it is, after all, my home now. I am a city boy. There have been four cities that I have called home, New York, Rome, San Francisco and now Bangkok. As cities go those are as good as any and better than most.

The problems started when I got to the airport. My retirement visa was due to expire a few days after my arrival. Unknown to me, I did not receive the normal 30 day visa upon entry. My entry visa expired on the same day as my retirement visa, so I had to pay a $400 dollar fine for overextending my stay.

On my flight from BKK to Seattle two people reading the Bible sat next to me. Now I have no problem with anyone reading anything and I am not overly superstitious, but given my concerns with Delta Airlines, I’ll admit to some anxiety.

In Seattle, as I went through customs, they discovered several packages of dried soup in my luggage. The inspector, a middle aged white man, asked me if I spoke english. I do not think he could have thought I was Thai so I assume he thought I was Mexican. I answered in the positive. Then he went all cop on me tearing apart my luggage and throwing LM’s knit caps all over the counter and on the floor. Upon locating the packages, he angrily shouted at me, “These packages contain meat projects. Why did you not indicate that you were carrying meat products?” I responded that I did not realize they did and in any event thought it applied only to fresh meat and products made mostly of meat. I shrugged. “Don’t get smart with me,” he screamed. “I could charge you a $1000 fine and have you arrested. You have done this before you know.” I thought silence at that moment was my best approach. He then strangely confiscated only two of the about 25 contaminated packages I had. He turned suddenly, said over his shoulder “I’m going to report you” and walked over to a table with a computer and sat down leaving me standing there amid the rubble of the contents of my luggage. He ignored me and typed away. I stood there. Finally one of the other agents motioned to me to pack up my things and leave, which I did.

Eventually I made it back to El Dorado Hills about 30 hours after I left my apt. in BKK. I took a shower and went right to sleep and did not wake up for almost 20 hours.

2. Morning in El Dorado Hills:

When I woke up, I walked the dogs. All trace of green has disappeared from the hills except for the leaves on the Valley Oaks. The houses along the street supposedly have drought resistant landscaping. Grass, only used along the borders, has started turning brown. When I looked closer at the landscaping, I saw that much of the ground cover and low bushes were dead or dying. Spider webs have begun covering them. It’s a bit creepy. So this is how it ends, neither in ice or fire nor with a bang or a whimper but desiccated and covered in cobwebs.

3. Exercise or bust:

I lost about twelve pounds during my stay in Thailand. Since returning I already feel as though I am gaining it back. Snacking is a way of life in the US.

I was given a two week trial membership in the El Dorado Hills upscale health club. Not as upscale as the country club, but more upscale than my existing proletarian health club. The new club has a pool. I now swim there in the morning and try to go to my old club in the afternoon. After that, I usually go to the man cave across the parking lot from my old health club for a beer and a cigar while I watch the world cup on a giant TV screen. The man cave is dark, dingy and comfortable with large overstuffed chairs and ottomans. The guys at the man cave are mostly overweight, tattooed and friendly. I’ve got the overweight part covered. Tattoos are out for me and friendly is just not my thing at this age – if it ever was.Outside the man cave.

I feel uncomfortable at the new health club. Perhaps it’s the lack of tattoos. Also, people seem less inclined to talk or joke with one another there. In fact, I do not recall seeing anyone smiling.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

Many years ago when I was involved in coastal protection matters in California, I went for a walk through Point Reyes with Bill Yeates who was at that time, I believe,a Graduate Legal Assistant working with me. As we walked along, I was amazed at how Bill could predict what birds we would see in each bush and what a bird would look like from just hearing the sound it makes flapping its wings. Like any person lacking knowledge, I considered his abilities almost magical. On the other hand as a confirmed cynic, I suspected he was bullshitting me.

Sometime after that walk, Bill jokingly (or not) mentioned to several people that I could not be a real environmentalist because I knew little about the natural environment.

That is not completely true. As a city boy I know a lot about urban fauna. For example, I know a lot about rats, pigeons and cockroaches. I can tell the difference between a giant Norwegian Roof Rat and an ordinary brown or black rat by the sounds it makes as it scrabbles through the walls at night.

I know that, wherever old people sit on benches, pigeons will soon congregate. When entering a room, I can tell instantly under which appliance or piece of furniture a cockroach is hiding.

I do not understand why there are no groups or organizations dedicated to the protection of these urban species. I suggest that a Society for the Preservation of Urban Vermin (SPUV) be created to defend our urban friends from the millenia of bad press they have received and to shield them from wanton slaughter and cruelty to which they have been subject.

Why, for example, do we allow the existence of individuals and organizations whose sole purpose is to be paid to come on to your property and kill rats? Some even publicize that they eschew environmentally unsound killing techniques (poisons and gas). Instead these defenders of the environment smear peanut butter on rat traps that snap the necks of the unwary, if greedy, rat. Now I realize that, in the case of rats, catch and release poses some problems. For example, what would be an appropriate place to release these critters – your neighbors house?

Now pigeons are unique. They only exist as adults. Has anyone ever seen a baby pigeon walking around a city? I believe they reproduce like amoebas. They simply split down the middle when they need to create another pigeon. Have you ever noticed, for example, should a hawk decimate a flock of pigeons over say a particular town square, the next morning there appears to be exactly the same number of pigeons flying about?

Humans consider the juvenile of almost every species on earth cute. Even baby sharks when emerging from their mothers womb exude cuteness. Not cockroaches. Does anyone believe smaller cockroaches are cuter? Would you want to cuddle one?

For these reasons and more, I believe our urban friends need protection. Remember, when we all retreat again into deep dark caves because we have burnt the world to a crisp, who will accompany us? Why our friends the rat, pigeon and cockroach will. And when the earth has cooled and we leave again, only we and our friends together will greet that world. A world bereft of all living things – except gorse, broom and tumbleweeds. Gorse, broom and tumbleweeds survive because they are not of this universe and can never die.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. What “Occupy” is all about and what it really wants:

1. Lower student debt:
Having our nation’s youth begin their economic lives in debt does not seem like a good idea to me.

2. Eliminate Corporate Welfare Queens:

Why should taxpayers subsidize businesses that ought to compete? Perhaps there may be a reason in the case of introducing an important new technology, but subsidizing an almost 100 year old mature technology seems unreasonable.

B. Tales of Nasruddin:

The king once summoned Nasruddin to court.

“Tell me,” said the king, “you are a mystic, philosopher, a man of unconventional understandings. I have become interested in the issue of value. It’s an interesting philosophical question. How does one establish the true worth of a person or an object? Take me for example. If I were to ask you to estimate my value, what would you say?”

“Oh,” Nasruddin said, “I’d say about two hundred dinars.”

The emperor was flabbergasted. “What?! But this belt I’m wearing is worth two hundred dinars.”

“I know,” said Nasruddin. “Actually, I was taking the value of the belt into consideration.”

TODAY’S QUOTES:

Erick Erickson, Conservative opinion leader and blogger in Redstate.

“I’m just not sure what the Republican Party really stands for any more other than telling Obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. That’s not much of a platform.

Trenz Pruca, spokesperson for himself and an unread, occasional blogger.

“Why would anyone be morally bound or wish to be morally bound to a civil society that does not share the goal that its citizens deserve a fair distribution of wealth, income and power? If the civil society is not dedicated to that end what else could it possibly be dedicated to? What is freedom, to those without wealth, income or power?”

TODAY’S CHART:
Why does it appear muslims choose to congregate in the Republican heartland?

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others….”Groucho Marx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA

TODAY FROM THAILAND:

A. POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN THAILAND:

1. Still in America

Before leaving for Thailand, Bill Geyer and I attended a memorial in Sacramento for John Zierold. Beginning in the late 1960’s he was the Sierra Club lobbyist in the California State Capitol for many years . He also founded the Planning and Conservation League.

The years Zierold prowled the halls of the State Capitol were remarkable for the volume of environmental laws that passed out of the Legislature: CEQA, BCDC, The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, The California Coastal Act, The California Coastal Conservancy, The Tahoe Conservancy, The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and many others including billions of dollars in bond acts to preserve a lot of California’s majestic and not so majestic landscape .

Attending the memorial were many of the now aging players in the political battles during those years, most quite a bit fatter and a few like Bill Yeates and Bill Geyer a lot thinner. Attending were: Bill Kier, head or the Senate Office of Research (Bill was there during the early part of Jerry Brown’s first administration when we were having trouble finding a suitable candidate for the head of the Department of Forestry and Jerry suddenly blurted out, “Indians! Find me an Indian. They know all about the woods.”); Charlie Warren, the ex-Assemblyman who co-authored the Coastal Act; Joe Edmiston the first and still reigning Director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy; Gene Varininni, Energy Commission Commissioner; Dan Richards, one of my successors as Chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority; Bill Yeates who after working with me became one of the leading environmental advocates in Sacramento and many others including of course Stevie and Norbert.

The speeches, including mine, were mostly the rambling reminisces of old men. Women had generally not yet broken through the glass ceiling in enough numbers to join in the running of the bulls.

A few days later I had lunch with Bill Yeates at an excellent “slow food” pizzeria. I talked far too much.
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2. “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,”

Now some may wonder (as I do) why, given the recent imposition of martial law in Thailand, I would choose to go there now. One reason is my tickets are non refundable. Another, although less compelling, is that I have been through civil disturbances like this many times before.

In 1964 or so, during the Harlem riots, I spent them standing at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in front of the Legal Aid office at which I worked watching the battle wax and wane in front of me. Across Lexington stood the hotel where Fidel Castro famously roasted chickens in the hallway. In that same hotel, as I was observing the fortunes of those who would soon be clients, a reporter who later won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the riots sat typing away. Later I got to know and detest that reporter. Still later it was discovered that he was so terrorized by the thought of being injured in the riots that he refused to leave his room or even look out the window and made up everything that appeared in his prize-winning reports.

A few years later in Rome during the student rebellion, I stood among a crowd in front of a university building and watched the protestors defenestrate an opponent who splattered on the cement a few feet from where I was standing.

About a year later, still in Rome, I attended a Fascist protest in Piazza Venezia during which the leader of the protest was crushed beneath the wheels of an army jeep – again a few feet from where I was standing. At another protest (Communist this time) I was caught by a squad of police with raised truncheons and saved myself by shouting “Don’t hurt me, I’m Canadian.”

And of course I participated in the mandatory anti-Vietnam War riots and protests in SF as well as attending various previous coups and protests in Thailand.

What I have learned from all this is that most riots and similar disturbances are localized for the convenience of the media and one must intend to go there to put oneself in harm’s way. Accidents may always happen but danger is something someone generally chooses to risk.
****************************************

3. Flight

The flight to Thailand was uneventful. The plane was not crowded. I was able to scare off a young woman who was eyeing the same row of empty seats that I was. That allowed me to stretch out and sleep in relative comfort except for the sound of retching from the woman across the aisle who vomited every hour or so and for the gentleman in the row in front of me who seemed to suffer an excess of intestinal gas.

There were only three westerners on the last leg of the trip into BKK. Passport control was almost empty.
******************************************

3. Ah, Thailand

By the time I arrived in Thailand, the martial law that had been announced just before I left had graduated to a full coup. A curfew had been imposed that upset both the owners and workers in the city’s bars and nightclubs and their mostly western (farang) customers. Television had been shut down except for the occasional appearance of a photogenic young military man describing the wonderful things being done by the military. A single very bad but very popular soap opera was permitted to be shown in the evening so that the people would have something to do during curfew.

The traffic was wonderfully light, mostly empty taxis and busses. I did not notice the presence of any military in my neighborhood.

In the afternoon I accompanied the Little Masseuse to a shopping center to buy some pillows. She explained to me that she had placed the pillows on the balcony to air out and the wind from a sudden storm blew them off the balcony and into the piles of dog shit that fill the alley between my building and the next. At first I did not believe her. However, I could not come up with a more rational story to account for the disappearance of the pillows. Apparently that same storm also took my underwear into the dog shit along with the pillows.

By the time we arrived at the department store my foot had swollen up like a week old rancid sausage. I could not remember if my doctor’s instructions were that I should go directly to the emergency room in that case or not. I decided not. So, I sat at a table by the food court with a coke while LM set about searching for suitable pillows. As I sat there, I occupied myself with trying to draw sensible generalizations from my observation of the people who passed by. The following is a bit of what I concluded while I sat there:

Farang men wear shorts more than Asians. On the whole, men were color blind except for gay guys. Perhaps it would benefit all men to spend a night or two on the wild side. They would probably dress better. Women on the other hand did not appear color blind. The ladies of the demimonde who paraded by wore pants so tight they appeared painted on or dresses short enough to expose their labia majora. At my age of course I am permitted observe such things without the hint of prurience.

Two low riders passed by with pants hitched somewhere about their knees, their tee-shirt draped down to cover most of the rest of their body. It is a style that I find difficult to understand. Of course from a line standpoint it is simply another version of south asian pantaloons with a straight line rather than the puffy one affected by the maharajas. The low rider style seems quite puritan. After all, although their pants are worn with the waist dropped close to the floor, like those of an over excited lover, the overall look still carefully hides any hint of the human body beneath the costume. (The daintily exposed upper buttocks and crack sported by amorous plumbers on the other hand could be considered quite racy)

What really “grinds my gears” are the two greatest disasters in men’s fashions in the last century John Kennedy’s refusal to wear a hat (may he roast in hell for it) thereby encouraging weak-willed men to go hatless except for that abortion, the baseball cap. I don’t care where you put the bill it still looks like crap. The second disaster was the creation of business casual by removing the only item of color in a mans outfit, the tie. I have heard tell by those who favored the style that ties were too restricting. I ask, was it that or was it that those saying this did not want to admit they were getting fatter?

As for women’s fashion, I like things cut on the diagonal. That is, a diagonal slash across the vertical line of the body. However that double bias cut on the bottom of some modern women’s dresses leaving two bits of fabric floating to the side like upside down wings and an inverted V pointing to their vagina is the greatest fashion mistake since the bustle.

I could go on about this and other things I thought about while I sat there but my foot began to feel better and LM returned with the pillows so we left, took a motor bike taxi and returned to my apartment.
*********************************************

Back at the apartment LM showed me the results of her knitting during the time that I was away. Instead of wool scarves that have no use in tropical Thailand and which I buy from her as presents for my nearest and dearest in the US, she has knitted a bagfull of wool winter caps. They are quite colorful, some with pompoms on the top and some that did not get the shape of the head quite right and so they fetchingly flop over a bit. For those who received the scarves from me as presents in the past, beware, here come the caps.
********************************************************

The next day I went swimming at the health club and then had a two-hour massage (the price has doubled to $20). Talked a while to Gary II (Canadian Gary not Chiang Mai Gary) who was working remodeling his hair salon and who was pissed because had to cancel his hockey game (yes there is hockey in BKK) because of the curfew.
***********************************************

I learned that the Good/Bad David had suffered a crushed disk in his back and spent two weeks in the hospital. He is recuperating in Pattaya.
***********************************************

There still has been no evidence of the military anywhere although the newspapers are reporting they have a new plan for governing the nation that will do away with the necessity of voting.
*************************************************

B. POOKIE’S DREAMS:

About 20% of the population, more or less, are what is referred to as vivid dreamers, those who know that they are dreaming and to some extent can control the content and length of their dreams. Many vivid dreamers also are able to recall their dreams faithfully for some time after. In my case some dreams become so imbedded in my memory that I can no longer distinguish them from real memories unless something focusses my attention on the unreality of my dream memory.

I have had such a dream memory of Malibu. Why Malibu, I ask myself? After all Malibu is nothing more than a rather ugly shrub choked semi-desert at the edge or the ocean. The people who live there I find are some of the most disagreeable, nasty, self-righteous people on the planet. For the most part they live there only because other wealthy people live there.

I once had a developer friend who told me, “my pappy told me always to sell to the rich. They will spend any amount of money to live next to one another.” Alas, my friend forgot his pappy’s direction, bought a savings and loan and promptly went bankrupt.

Anyway my dream, which I will relate in the next issue of T&T, is unusual in that I learn in the dream itself that my dream Malibu was a fantasy.
(to be continued)

C. POOKIE’S BOOK REPORT:

As you know, I like to include items written by my T&T correspondents whenever I can. Here is something I found on Cort’s Facebook page that has an interesting take on Lee Harvey Oswald:

“Best book I read on the JFK assassination: Case Closed by Gerald Posner. It has some material on my parent’s accountant, George Bouhe, who I knew well. He was Russian and helped Russian immigrants. He knew LHO well and tried to persuade Marina to leave. According to Bouhe, and almost everyone else who knew LHO, including a psychiatrist who interviewed him at age 13, LHO was a dangerous, narcissistic, raving homicidal maniac. The book is well researched and written.”
Cort Holland

Pookie says, “check it out.”

DAILY FACTOIDS:

May 31, 2014, the 13th annual Masturbate-a-Thon will be held in San Francisco to celebrate the end of this year’s International Masturbation Month.

1980-1988: When Ronald Reagan took office, U.S. debt was under $1 trillion. After he left eight years later, debt was $2.6 trillion and the U.S. had moved from being the world’s largest international creditor to the world’s largest debtor nation.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

What “Occupy” was all about and what it really wanted:

It wanted society to avoid what Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations and the justly acclaimed Father of Capitalism warned against:

“But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons.”

Note: This quote isn’t from some Marxist manifesto. It’s from Book 3 of The Wealth of Nations. Smith denounces the rentier economy represented by large landowners in those days. Owners of financial debt instruments embody those rentiers today.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“The love of possessions is a disease with them. They take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own and fence their neighbours away. If (North) America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough; the Indian would still have been dispossessed.”Chief Sitting Bull

“Economics, where the inmates get corporate funding to run the asylum.”Mokurai

Happy Birthday Stevie.

TODAY FROM THAILAND:

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN BANGKOK:

Well, so far today it’s been a good day. No one has called me an insensitive, dull-witted loser for a few days now (well maybe they have, but we’ll get to that later.) I woke up, dressed and walked to the health club. The overcast skies had departed briefly and the sun was shining. At the club, I sat in the lobby among the Old Men’s Caucus reading the newspapers and swapping stories.

After I did that for a while, I accompanied the Old Sailor to his locker where he took out a wooden box about the size of a small cigar box. He told me it contained the ashes of a close friend of his who had died a few months ago. The dead man’s sister, who lives in Ohio, sent them to the Old Sailor telling him that one of her brother’s last wishes was to send some of his ashes to the Old Sailor so that he could spread them around Bangkok’s houses of ill repute in his memory. So, the Old Sailor explained, he dutifully carried the box with him during his pleasure rounds sprinkling some of his friend’s remains around as he leaves the various establishments.

Now although at first this may seem to be simply a quirky amusing story, alas, it has a less appealing context. It demonstrates for the billion billionth time that the average human male equates his life with his genitals.

I suspect women tend to think there is more to their life than the happiness of their vaginas. I could never imagine a sane woman sending her ashes to her best friend and instructing her to sprinkle them over the floor of the singles bar whenever she leaves with some guy. Maybe pouring it into an ex-husbands coffee, perhaps.

After that, I left to do some banking and get my ticket to return to the US. For those interested in my peregrinations, I arrive in SFO sometime on the 23rd of August and intend to spend the evening in the Bay Area. From then until the end of the month I have no idea what my schedule will be or where I will bed down at night. However, I am looking forward to spending the Memorial Day weekend at my sister’s place in Mendocino.

After obtaining the ticket, I returned to the health club, swam, enjoyed a steam bath, showered and left for my weekly massage. Following that I walked back to my apartment, took a brief nap and wrote this. All and all it has been a good day so far.

Of course, I am of the temperament that believes that in life all good must be balanced by an equal or greater amount of bad. Although I try always to remain conscious of my motto, Dum Spiro, Spero (Where there’s Life there’s Hope), unfortunately, far too often I believe in its darker alternative: Dum Spiro, non Spero (Where there’s Life, there is no Hope). Nevertheless, whenever I feel entrapped in one of my periodic episodes of existential dread, I try to focus on the advice of three of my favorite American philosophers whose wisdom seems to me to fit most circumstances I face in my life:

For those reading this you probably think I’m kidding. Well, let’s see about that.

Assume you have just experienced a serious tragedy. The first thing you may want to tell your self is, “It’s always something.” If that does not work for you, then try, “Tomorrow is another day.” That still doesn’t do it, then it may be time for you to try sex with someone you love (or at least never tells you they don’t feel like it right now).

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Well, another pretty good day in the bank. It started at the Old Man’s Caucus at the health club. The Old Sailor and I decided to go to Khao San Road so that I can pick up a driver’s license. Despite its notoriety I had never been to Khao San Road before. It has been described as, “The Place to Disappear.” For years it was the backpackers center of Thailand where one could buy almost anything, especially drugs and STD. To me it looked more like the Venice California boardwalk than Bangkok, only the sellers in the stalls lining both sides of the street were not western tourists.

After securing the license, we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s where we were joined by Joe a man who looked like the cadaverous twin of Jerry Merrill. Both the Old Sailor and Joe hinted that they were suffering some truly life threatening maladies. Joe’s skin was pocked with oozing sores. I was disappointed to learn that although I thought they both were substantially older than I, they were actually two years younger.

I spent the afternoon sitting in that McDonald’s on Khao San Road listening to their stories of trips around the world with stolen credit cards, dope deals gone bad, scams that worked and those that didn’t and the mysterious disappearance of four kilos of gold. After that, we went to the travel agency and internet café around the corner where we played on Skype for a while talking to some guy in the Philippines in order to arrange for Joe’s accommodation’s there when he visits in two weeks. I decided to check with the agent to see if they would have been able to get me a better price for my air travel to the US than I was able to get after about a week of trying. I was quite upset they were able to find a ticket for one-third less than I had paid. We then said goodbye to Joe and left Khao San Road. After a two-hour bus ride through downtown BKK, I returned to my apartment.

********************

Today was somewhat interesting. It rained and swimming was not an option. So after attending the Old Men’s Caucus at the health club, I only took a steam bath and shower. As I prepared to leave, I was enticed into a discussion with a likable, intelligent, paranoid conspiracy theorist. His name is Christopher. He was born in Australia of a Jewish father and Australian mother. His father’s family is originally from Transylvania but spent a few generations in Vienna before emigrating to Australia.

He identifies himself proudly as an anarchist and firmly believes in just about every conspiracy I have heard about and a few that I did not: The Twin Towers Conspiracy, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and so on and on. One of them I did not know about goes something like this:

Since the signing of Magna Carta, we unknowingly have been subject to Admiralty Law and not Common Law; which means that we are not individuals but chattel in the eyes of the law. Among the proofs of this amazing assertion was his claim that all birth certificates since then have been written on special paper usually used to write Bills of Lading for transporting goods by ship. Since Bills of Lading are often negotiable documents and can be used as security for debts, our birth certificates over the years have become owned by banks because they were used as collateral by nation states to secure their loans for various wars and the like. He says if you look at a real birth certificate instead of the copy you usually receive (the real ones are kept in the vaults of the major international banks) you will discover on the back stamps from the banks and financial institutions you have been pledged to.

This was probably the least shocking conspiracy he revealed in the several hour conversation I had with him. At one point, he mentioned that if your name is written in all capital letters on a document, that means you are a corporation and not an individual. At least that is what I thought he said.

It was, for me, a few hours fascinating voyage into the arcane world of the truly sublimely insane. Much better than the books I have been reading recently.

He claims he made enough money converting his training as a bio-chemist and phlebotomist into a series of blood testing centers around Australia and England to retire to Thailand. I thought this was an interesting choice of occupation for someone whose family is originally from Transylvania. Anyway, he invited me to join him for dinner one evening before I return to the US.

******************

A few days ago I received an interesting email. It seems that about four years ago as I was closing down my law practice before escaping to Thailand, someone, I no longer remember, asked me to begin some litigation on his behalf for free. I pointed out to him that I did not do litigation and although during the prior few years of practice most of my clients failed to pay their bills, I was not interested in beginning another pro bono representation. The prospective client then explained that the statute of limitations to bring the action would run out in a few days and begged me, as a favor, to file the action so that he could have the time to find an attorney willing to represent him for free. Alas, always a sucker for a sad story, I agreed and filed the case. As could be expected, my friend did not secure alternative representation by the time a mandatory settlement conference was set up. I missed conference and was fined by the court. Ultimately the case was resolved with no further problems and I left the US. Unfortunately I forgot to pay the fine. Now over four years later I learn from my friends through the email that I have been prohibited by the Bar Association from further practice of law in California because I had failed to pay the fine.

Around the same time as my departure from the US, I also tried to retire from the Bar. I was told that in order to do so I would have to pay all unpaid back dues, a fee for retirement and annual dues to remain on inactive status. This conversation occurred during that time when the Bar Association had been unfunded by the California (In effect disbarred by California) and was somewhat desperate for money. After a few arguments over the telephone with representatives of the Bar about my inability to pay the back fees all at once and the unreasonableness of having to pay a fee and dues, no matter how small, to retire and receiving no satisfaction, I explained to them what I thought they could do with their demands. Eventually I began to receive notices by mail from the Bar Association which I assumed were continuing demands for payment of the dues. I treated them just the same as I treated notices from credit card companies demanding payment and threatening to ruin my already ruined credit rating; I threw them all unopened into the trash until, after about a year when my forwarding address ceased to be operative, they ceased. I assume some of these notices contained demands for the payment of fine as well.

At least I was not accused of moral turpitude. Although I certainly have in my life often turpituded my morals, my failing, it seems, was not the terps and tudes that usually gets the Bar Association’s knickers in a twist.

Now in order to save what remains of my reputation and avoid the malicious whisperings of those who should know better, I am faced with the option of possibility paying many thousands of dollars so that I can be reinstated and continue to pay the Bar Association in order to remain on inactive status. I find my chances of choosing this route highly unlikely.

On the other hand, one of my favorite mystery writers, Christopher Moore’s, main character in many of his novels is named Vinnie Calvino, a half Italian, half Jewish lawyer from NY who was disbarred who now lives in Bangkok and eaks out a living as a PI. I find, on the whole, the Calvino approach to dealing with recalcitrant bar associations rather romantic.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

Note: the following continues my series about the four governmental agencies that I had some role in developing. I skipped over the California Coastal Commission because I have dealt with its creation at length in previous issues of T&T (although never completed).

C. The California State Coastal Conservancy.

2. Rational for creation of the Coastal Conservancy.

The 1973 voter approved Proposition 20 required the preparation of a plan for the preservation of the resources along California’s 1500 miles of coast by a new governmental entity, The California Coastal Commission. In order to prevent new development from subverting the Plan, the Commission was authorized to regulate all proposed new development within a band extending 1000 feet from the high water line. I was the chief counsel to the Commission in charge of, among other things, the creation and management of the regulatory program. Later I also wrote three elements of the Coastal Plan including the Government, Powers and Funding element that described the Commissions proposals for implementation of the substantive recommendations of the Plan.

The interim regulatory program allowed the Commission and its staff to experience first hand the dynamics of development along the coast and the limitations inherent in a regulatory program. Among these limitations we recognized the following:

1. Although it is capable of moderating the adverse impacts of new development or stopping it all together, regulation proved ineffective in altering negative forces already set in motion by prior development. Neither could it remedy the damage to resources that had already occurred.

2. Regulation, no matter how stringent, leaks. For innumerable reasons inappropriate or developments with unforeseen consequences get approved now and then continuing, albeit slower, the deterioration of the resource. The “leakage” inevitably confirms David Brower’s lament regarding attempts to protect the environment, “All our victories are temporary and all our defeats permanent.”

3. Regulation can stop additional bad things from happening, but it could not take action to create good things nor take preëmptive action. It could not restore degraded resources, build and manage access ways for the public to enjoy the coastline everyone was working so hard to protect, promote and create urban resources, establish physical boundaries to sprawl rather than simply attempting to impose juridical boundaries that ultimately “leak.”

4. Regulation must, for a number or reasons, treat the problems and resources as infinite; for example “wetlands should not be filled,” or “Developments should not interfere with significant public views,” and the like. Yet, in fact, the resources were finite. It was these specific wetlands that needed to be protected and those particular views. As a result regulation was not as sensitive to the more complex requirements of the individual resource.

5. Regulation was passive and reactive. One had to wait for a development to be proposed before a regulatory action could be taken. If the resource was extremely valuable one could not predict the dynamics that affect the decision nor the appropriateness of the action.

6. If the specific resource’s environmental merits were high enough then, leaving it exposed to the conflict of economic interests and value that push and pull those involved in the regulatory process, seem foolhardy.
(To be continued)

JOEY’S NEW MYSTERY NOVEL:

ENTER THE DRAGON

Dragon’s Breath:

Vivian: I don’t like your manners.Marlowe: And I’m not crazy about yours. I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don’t mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don’t waste your time trying to cross-examine me.Chapter 25

I followed Mavis into the pool area where she had already settled into what appeared to be an amusing conversation with Lilly Park. For some reason I assumed it was about me. I approached them. Lilly turned to me with a big smile, said, “Well, here’s the great private detective. Come to shake me down again?”

“The threesome offer is still open,” I responded. “That’s the only type of shaking I’m interested in right now.”

“Ooh, I might just be into that. Can I bring a fourth?”

“Bring whoever you’d like.”

“Maybe I’ll bring Malcolm,” she said. “I heard you two get along real well.”

Malcolm Dornbush, the octogenarian real estate developer of many of San Francisco’s most notable high rises, philanthropist and major contributor to the City’s Democratic Party since there is no opposition party to corrupt. Oh and a major prick. He never forgave me for representing a competitor in a battle over which one could misuse the City’s environmental planning policies to benefit himself at the expense of the other as well as the public. I won.

A few weeks later at a political event at which we were both honored for our meretricious contributions to the party, Malcolm approached the table at which I was sitting along with a number of unmemorable political appointees to various city boards and commissions and in a loud voice berated me for causing him to lose some of his expected outrageous profits on the project. He also swore that he would never give me and my firm and legal work in the future and capped the diatribe off with a threat to destroy my career. I knew that the threat was meaningless. I was quite capable of destroying my career on my own and certainly did not need his help to do so.

I responded, “Mal, you can fuss and fume all you want, but you are an old man and I am much younger than you and I will always have the pleasure of knowing that I will outlive you and that you know it.” Actually I was not so sure. Even then I believed the fucker was so evil he would live forever.

The mostly bald, liver spotted creäture of darkness that was Malcolm Dornbush seemed to emerge from behind some vegetation that had hidden him like a swamp hides alligators. He was followed by his equally reprehensible son who rumor has it was so incompetent he was sent off to the bush leagues of Oakland to suborn that city into allowing him to fail at redeveloping an already misused piece of Port property.

“Why hello Dragon,” said the talking pus bucket as he turned to me. “I almost did not see you. You’re easy to miss among all these distinguished people. I see you know Lilly. I hear you do not get out of North Beach much anymore. Pity.” He smiled for a moment and continued, “As you can see I am still alive.”

“I congratulate you Mal, on your brilliance in living this long and forcing me to delay that inevitable day when I stand there and piss on your grave.”

“Ah, same old Dragon.” He pointedly turned his back to me and said to Lilly, “Come Lilly. I see Bertha Briggs the Chairwoman of the Port of Oakland over there. We have to say a few words to her about Alvin’s project. Why don’t you join us my dear?”

He, ever the Lothario, said the last to Mavis and with his arms spread wide like a farmer herding ducks moved them all off to where the ever loud Bertha was holding court. Mavis turned her head to me and shrugged before she and everyone else left me standing there alone.

DAILY FACTOID:

2013- The US has over 1.1 million lawyers and graduates about 40,000 more per year. The US leads the world in lawyers per capita. As a whole lawyers are among the highest paid professionals in the US. They produce little of value to the nation as a whole.

At the same time, we have only about 16000 physicists and 8000 materials scientists. They do not earn on average as much as lawyers do. A significant portion of the technological advancement that forms much of the economic foundation of the nation’s wealth depends on them.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

What “Occupy” is all about and what it really wants:

“Even without being able to gauge the actual political power of wealthy citizens, we can confidently reject the view that extensive political power by the wealthy would be of little practical importance anyway because their policy preferences are much the same as everyone else’s. On many important issues the preferences of the wealthy appear to differ markedly from those of the general public. Thus, if policy makers do weigh citizens’ policy preferences differentially based on their income or wealth, the result will not only significantly violate democratic ideals of political equality, but will also affect the substantive contours of American public policy.” Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans, by Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country. It works the same in every country.”Herman Goering during his testimony at the Nuremberg Trials.

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”Joseph Stalin

“What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?”Woody Allen

TODAY’S CHART:TODAY’S PHOTOGRAPH:

Me at the beach holding up the sky like Atlas, except I do it with only one hand.

“Why would anyone be morally bound or wish to be morally bound to a civil society that does not share the goal that its citizens deserve a fair distribution of wealth, income and power? If the civil society is not dedicated to that end what else could it possibly be dedicated to? What is freedom to those without wealth, income or power?”

Parody is impossible, another example: Recently, in my campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, I made a proposal so outlandish that I believed it would beggar credulity; that if elected I would sell off everything government owns, including the White House, Air Force One and the Pentagon. Alas, I discovered that earlier this year, Rick Perry as Governor of Texas promoted and signed into law legislation that would allow all Texas State public buildings, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, ports, mass transit projects, telecommunications, etc., to be sold off to corporations. Even more incredible, the law allows the prospective purchasers to borrow the money from the state who then will guarantee the loans. According to Matt Tiabbi in a Rolling Stoned article, “…a foreign company theoretically could borrow money from Texas taxpayers to buy the taxpayer’s own state property at a discount.”

Rick Perry, the people’s hero and one of God’s elect.

TODAY’S FACTOID:

ARGENTINA: In 2001 Argentina’s economy collapsed. Since then, under the presidential administrations of the late Nestor Kirchner and his wife Christina Fernandez, the country has grown faster than any other nation on earth except for China and India, while increasing pensions, child welfare and the minimum wage by 25% and creating a fund for early support for pregnant woman (Something the anti-abortion crusaders in the US eschew). The wealth gap between the top 5% and the lowest 5% has been halved, while in the US it has more than doubled.

They renationalized the pension funds that had been privatized in response to pressure from the World Bank and the IMF to do so. The private funds forced the Argentine taxpayers to foot 60% of the payouts while the private funds took their profits out of the country hastening the 2001 default.*

Finally, it has told Foreign banks that they will accept no conditions, such as the austerity measures imposed on Greece. Instead, against advice of the banks and financial institutions, they used the reserves of the Argentine central bank to pay off foreign loans and reduce the national debt.

It has done all this while building up near record foreign reserves of 48 billion USD. And, they did this all without having political control of the national legislature.

*By the way, the single worst thing that can be done to control escalating public costs for entitlements such as Social Security is to privatize it. Not only do the costs not diminish, but now they add to those costs their profits as well.

TODAY’S NEWS FROM AMERICA AND THAILAND:

1. Solar in California: Installed solar in California now exceeds that of all other nations in the world except, Germany, Spain, Japan, Italy and the Czech Republic. Hooray for us.

Among the reason for this milestone is that China, taking advantage of generous local subsidies as well as free trade and lower labor and environmental costs has been able to reduce costs of solar equipment enough to make it affordable for Californians while driving the local indigenous solar equipment businesses, out of business. Soon enough however the ordinary Californian, shortly to become unemployed, will no longer be able to afford to solarize their houses, but the average Chinese will. The CEO of a Chinese solar company predicted that in about a decade there will be only about 5 huge solar energy companies and that they will all be Chinese.

I decided to return to the Bay Area by train, “The Coast Starlight,” a trip I have always wanted to make. So I boarded the train at about 10:30 in the morning and, alternating between my seat and the observation car, watched the coast of central California slip by. It was a good chance to spend some time contemplating what I had spent so much of my time worrying about a few decades ago.

I tried to locate projects I approved or denied, entitled or failed to do and those I built or restored during my almost 30 year involvement with the California coast. Alas the route of the train took me past very few of them. We did however travel through the area around Vandenberg AFB that was one of the few places along the 1500 mile or so coastline I had not visited. For those of you not familiar with California Vandenberg in the location of the American space programs west coast operation. While Cape Canaveral in Florida is run by NASA the civilian space agency, Vandenberg is strictly military and very hush-hush.

I arrived in SF at about 9PM thoroughly refreshed after an enjoyable relaxing and relatively inexpensive trip. In the future, I hope to travel about the country by train, but I intend to avoid eating in the dining car. I decided to have dinner in the dining car in hopes of enjoying a good meal and meeting interesting people. I was seated at a table with a man and a woman of my approximate age. Our conversation consisted of little more than, “Pass the salt, please,” and the like. I ordered steak since the rest of the menu appeared unappealing to me. The meat was not too bad, but they did to the vegetables what I had only seen done to vegetables during my travels in England.

Meg continued, “I would like to know if you have remember anything else about your last conversation with Stephanie Coign?”

“No, I don’t,” he replied curtly, then added, “If I may ask, why are you taking so much interest in this? After all it is only an accident or at worse suicide, don;t you think?”

“I am just trying to cover all the bases for the report I have to file in cases like this.” Then she stopped, looked down at the floor for a moment as though she was thinking something through. Then looked up directly at Vince, her eyes filling with tears.

“No, that;s not true Mr. Biondi. I knew Stephanie, well. I cannot accept that she killed herself or accidentally drove off that cliff. Do not ask me why, I won’t tell you.”

Vince, surprised at this confession, tumbled into confusion, as more often than he liked to admit he did whenever conflicting emotions engulfed him; which was almost always and almost always left him wallowing in indecision. He immediately felt both guilt and compassion. Guilt because only moments ago he vacillated between dislike of this woman and the rawest sexual fantasies. Compassion, because of the tears in her eyes and whatever lingering fantasies remained. He realized that here was something with which he could further stir the witches brew he was thoughtlessly concocting. Uncharacteristically, he made a decision. He decided to confide in her, perhaps find an ally, even a lover (God was he horny) whatever. So he unloaded on her what he knew of Red Star, The Brethren, Sam’s death and Stephanie’s distress. He held back anything about Sam’s secret room, Russell and Isabella, Charlie and any mention of his plan and her role in it.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

a. Cracked News from “Not the Nation” (The Thai version of the Onion):

BOOK AD: (THE BOOK IS CALLED “GAMECHANGER” AND THEY HAVE A BIG ENDORSEMENT AT THE TOP; ON COVER:) “LOOKS LIKE A GREAT READ!” –GEORGE W. BUSH

HEADLINE:MISSIPPI’S LITERACY PROGRAM SHOWS IMPROVEMENT”

c. What the Occupy protesters really want:

1. “Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules.” Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890.

2.“John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup, and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. GOP once again means Guardians of Privilege.

Barack Obama criticizes bankers as “fat cats,” then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. The President has raised more money from banks, hedge funds, and private equity managers than any Republican candidate, including Mitt Romney. Inch by inch he has conceded ground to them while espousing populist rhetoric that his very actions betray.

Let’s name this for what it is: hypocrisy made worse, the further perversion of democracy.

Democratic deviancy defined further downward. Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy — fewer than six degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano.”
Bill Moyers, America’s last true patriot.

d. How To Talk Like A Republican (The New American Lexicon):

From Frank Luntz Republican Party consultant in a memorandum to Party leaders and regulars:

After 500 years of western society’s struggle to eliminate the dead hand of unlimited inherited wealth tying up societies resources in the hands of unproductive heirs, do you really think that your sudden aversion to taxes on wealthy estates of over several million dollars (only the top 1% again) was something you thought of on your own because you thought it was only fair, especially if one day you became rich yourself?

e. Testosterone Chronicles:

In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses’s scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.

This is not a joke.

TODAY’S QUOTE:“Sex is a big step on the way to happiness and joy. There is nothing wrong with it if it is followed with faithfulness and decency!” Bonita Let-Let

TODAY’S CARTOON:

TODAY’S PHOTOGRAPH:

TODAY’S PHOTOGRAPH II:

Photograph of the California Coast in its late afternoon autumn colors near Vandenberg AFB taken from the train.

I have no news today since I have not read the newspaper, looked at any television programs nor been connected to the internet. I can report that the temperature in LA is wonderfully warm and pleasant and the traffic on the freeways horrendous as usual.

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN LOS ANGELES:

I flew from Oakland airport to Long Beach where Monty met me. We drove into downtown LB to have drinks and to meet with some guy looking for investors in a business to develop diesel engines that run on hydrogen. The promoter is a disbarred attorney who claims to have served on the SF planning Commission and started a community bank in the SF Mission district during the 1980s. (I have seen this movie before.)

Monty and I then went to Monty’s home where we watched several music videos featuring Irish Music, “The Irish Tenors,” “The Three Priests” and Michael Crawford, the guy who sang the role of the Phantom in “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.

I slept on the sofa. It brought back memories of the many years as a child when the only bed I knew was the living room sofa. This was more like the camping I remembered than freezing my ass off in the woods like I did last weekend.

As a young man Monty made a living as a professional boxer. By the time he was about 20 years old he had amassed a record of 42 wins and only 5 defeats. This record was remarkable because he was a middleweight and at the time and that division contained some of the finest fighters that ever lived and was dominated by perhaps the greatest boxer ever, Sugar Ray Robinson. Monty could have been a contender, but his career was cut short by the loss of an eye to a knife in a street fight.

He then went into the family business, so to speak, horse racing, for which he retained a life long passion. This was followed by a number of careers including a stint in sports broadcasting until he, like half the nation it seems, found himself in southern California where he turned to a career in real estate untimely becoming a developer of shopping centers and quite well off until, alas, he fell in love with a magnificent piece of property located on the coast of California in San Luis Obispo County. This soon lead the loss of his wealth, family and the longest bankruptcy in the nation’s history, but it produced our friendship.

The next morning we drove to Venice to visit Ruth to see her newly remodeled home; then to downtown LA for lunch with Lina an old friend with whom about 10 years ago I travelled to Honduras and visited the Mayan ruins there.

After we returned to Monty’s home, we watched a marvelous movie entitled, “Going the Distance,” a documentary about ex-boxers who gather at a restaurant called the “Spaghetti Factory” in LA. In a way it resembles the Buena Vista Social Club for boxing. Instead of cutting away from interviews aged with the musicians to shots of them playing music, we went from interviews of the elderly pugilists to shote of them beating each others brains out.

Monty used to meet there with them. While Monty knew all of them well, he had a close personal relationship with Ray Mancini (Ex-lightweight champion), Carlos Palomino (Ex-welter weight world champion) and Bobby Chacon (former light weight champion of the world). The movie shows the now retired fighters old, often broke and in many cases sadly addled from the blows that ultimately destroyed their brains.

One of the most poignant moment of the film was when the great Bobby Chacon, reduced to the mental acuity of a child, tells, in words so slurred they had to be repeated in sub-titles at the bottom of the screen, about the night his wife, distressed at his unwillingness to give up boxing, killed herself. With tears running down his cheeks he told or receiving a call that night from his son crying into the phone, “Daddy, mommy shot herself.” A few years later that son also died in an episode of gang violence.

Later Monty told stories about boxing and his friendship with many famous fighters; from when he was a young Boxer, getting advice from Rocky Marciano, to more recently, conversations with Joe Frazier about what it was like to fight “Ali,” and of befriending Jerry Quarry. During his final years Quarry was broke and lived in Monty’s home. Monty took him in and cared for him during the fighter’s descent into poverty and dementia until that day he died in Monty’s arms.

For those readers of “This and that…” who recall “Gun Girl,” a revised version of that saga is being republished.

JOEY’S MYSTERY NOVEL:

RED STAR

Chapter: An interlude with Meg:

Meg stood next to her patrol car in a turn out on Highway near Half Moon Bay Harbor looking out over the vast, grey and brooding Pacific Ocean. Meg was in an unusually contemplative mood. She liked men. She also liked women. She liked Ray. He was all man. He also was all woman. She liked that about him. She didn’t understand why. That’s why she was standing here looking at the boring ocean and trying to sort out her emotions. She soon gave up. Contemplation was not Meg’s strength. She was a woman of action. And the action she craved now was to get her iron pumped and steroid enhanced hands around the neck of whoever killed Stephanie. She now was convinced Stephanie was murdered. So was Ray.

She got back into her automobile and drove to the coffee shop in the harbor. As she sat at one of the tables stirring her coffee Paul Grossmacher, the director of the Harbor District entered the place. Grossmacher was a kindly older gentleman who ran the District for as long as she remembered. She liked him. He had a dry sense of humor that she enjoyed, always listened sympathetically when she talked even when she just rambled on and he flirted outrageously with her.

He sat at her table ordered a cafe-latte and a poppy-seed bagel and inquired, “Meg, why so pensive, trying to solve some great mystery or are you just recalling some special pleasure you enjoyed last night?”

She laughed, “A little bit of both.”

“Ah, and is the mystery professional or personal?”

“A little bit of both.”

“Maybe I could help. I read a lot of mysteries.”

She laughed again. “No, I do not think so.”

“Why don’t you get everyone in the room and sweat them? Isn’t that what the detectives do?”

“Well, no,” she responded. “I have no witnesses and only one person who could know something, but I spoke with him and he doesn’t seem to. There is no family.”

“Why not try him again? Maybe he remembered something he forgot when you grilled him.”

They talked for a while more. She finished her coffee, got up and went out the door back to her cruiser. As she stood by the car door she thought that maybe there was something to Paul’s suggestion. Maybe I will go up to San Francisco and interview him in his office. It couldn’t hurt. I might even see Ray again.

So she took out Ray’s business card, called the office and asked to speak to Vincent Biondi.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

a. I didn’t know that:

Q: Did you ever wonder why dimes, quarters and half dollars have notches (milling), while pennies and nickels do not?

A: The US Mint began putting notches on the edges of coins containing gold and silver to discourage holders from shaving off small quantities of the precious metals. Dimes, quarters and half dollars are notched because they used to contain silver. Pennies and nickels aren’t notched because the metals they contain are not valuable enough to shave.

b. Cracked News from “Not the Nation”:

THE INFAMOUS SEASIDE RESORT OF PATTAYA — Known worldwide as a den of crime and vice, Pattaya municipal officials have decided to embrace its reputation by officially renaming the city “The Infamous Seaside Resort of Pattaya”.

Explaining the decision, Mayor Tik Kunplome said, “We found that almost every international press report referred to us as ‘the infamous seaside resort’. Rather than waste more money trying to brand our city as a family-friendly destination, we’ve decided that the moniker will help bring in more of those tourists to whom we cater best. Let’s not pretend anymore. Sex, drugs, prostitution — this shit sells.”

“You have indeed brought into being a mighty wild bull, head raised! There is no rival who can raise a weapon against him. His fellows stand (at the alert), attentive to his orders. Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father. Is he the shepherd of the haven of Uruk? Is he their shepherd, bold, eminent, knowing, and wise? Gilgamesh does not leave a girl in the care of her mother, does not leave the daughter of the warrior or the bride of the young man untouched. It was you, Aruru, who created this man. Now create a [zikru] for him. Let him be equal to Gilgamesh’s stormy heart. Let them be a match for each other. And so Uruk may find peace!” Gilgamesh, the original testosterone crazed hero upon whom the God of the “People of the Book” is modeled. Perhaps that God was actually the “Zikru” that Aruru created.